Stop-and-go traffic that chugs through the narrow streets of a historic Burlington neighborhood is helping fast-track local plans for a bypass.

The new road, linking Pine and Battery streets via a jog along the railyard, would benefit commuters and truckers who have little interest in tarrying, proponents say.

“People who drive through here and might consider stopping — tend to be too worried about parking, and risking tickets,” Kathleen Donaghue, 34, owner and operator of the King’s Corner Deli at King and South Champlain streets, said on Monday.

Donaghue is rooting for fewer rush-hour drivers, and more foot and bicycle traffic.

"The slower people are going, the better it is for business,” she said.

Regular customer and King Street resident Ashley Fisher, 29, arrived on foot and ordered a sandwich to go.

“Every rush-hour, at lunchtime and when schools get out in the afternoon, Maple Street is jammed, Pine Street is jammed, King Street is jammed,” Fisher said. “It’s so much easier to walk.”

In the two and a half years Donaghue has run her business, the pace of planning for the bypass has picked up.

In November, City Council expedited a study of the Railyard Enterprise Project to be built with state and local funds — and placed on a back burner a much more ambitious plan that would rely on federal dollars.

A proposed bypass connecting Pine and Battery streets is shown here in green. This draft proposal was approved by Burlington City Council in November 2016 as the preferred, lower-cost alternative of several options.(Photo11: Courtesy Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)

Council members are expected to vote on the streamlined design in May or June.

A budget for the bypass is still in the works. Results of environmental and historic studies will determine the final cost, as will negotiations with adjacent landowners, said Eleni Churchill, a transportation expert with the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission.

Federal construction funding, although attractive, would almost certainly delay the project, Churchill said: “We’re looking for the simplest and the least expensive way to do this.”

On the drawing board, the new road swings west from Pine Street between Curtis Lumber and the city-owned lot occupied by ReSource Building Material Store and the Chittenden Solid Waste District transfer and recycling station.

Battery and South Champlain streets, which currently dead-end at the railyard, would connect with the bypass.

After a half-century of delays, work on the so-called Southern Connector will likely begin in fall 2018, with completion projected for 2020, according to Chapin Spencer, director of Burlington Public Works.

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Burlington Director of Public Works Chapin Spencer stands where, he hopes, a bypass running from Pine to Battery Streets will be built. The Rail Yard Enterprise Project faces a few challenges, namely environmental, historic and negotiating with adjacent property owners including the rail yard. But Spencer says the city is hopeful that they work quickly to complete the project and offset traffic from the pending Champlain Parkway extension. (Photo11: RYAN MERCER/FREE PRESS)

Traffic studies for the parkway, which will connect Interstate 189 at Shelburne Road with Lakeside Avenue, predict up to 20 percent more motorists might be funneled onto northern Pine Street.

The city’s goal is to bring both roadways online at roughly the same time, Spencer said.

On Tuesday, Spencer joined Churchill and Jon Slason, an engineer with consulting firm RSG, for a slow stroll north along the bypass’ proposed route.

The group watched two men approach, plying the same weedy border of the railyard.

West of that neighborhood, planners at Vermont Railway say a bypass to their yard would probably be good for business.

“It would give trucks an easier route in and out of town without impacting the residential neighborhoods,” said Seldon Houghton, who manages the rail system’s freight transfer operations.

It's not yet a done deal, Houghton added: The current route is a tight squeeze, some of it across state land leased by the railroad.

“If we lose track space, we need to make it up somewhere else," he said. "We can’t lose flexibility and we can’t lose customers. And moving track isn’t cheap."

Houghton says he is optimistic that negotiations with city and state planners will yield a fair compromise.

At King’s Corner Deli, between tending the grill and checking out customers, Donaghue isn’t quite so sure the city should rush ahead.

“Before going to the expense of building a big project – I think we should work on improving bus service and getting more cars off the road,” Donaghue said. “It’s usually those cheaper solutions that are easier and more obvious.”

Contact Joel Banner Baird at 802-660-1843 or joelbaird@freepressmedia.com, and on Twitter at @vtgoingup.

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